Short film on a Tipperary woman burned by her husband to be shown this Friday

A SHORT film on Bridget Cleary, a Co Tipperary woman reportedly burned by her husband and others, will be shown in the Derrynaflan Theatre, Horse and Jockey Hotel on this Friday evening, February 28.

Bridget was a seamstress married to a cooper nine years her senior named Michael Cleary. Around the village she was known to be a polite, friendly, independent woman, well respected but little understood by her neighbours. The couple had no children after seven years of marriage, which was unusual in those days, and they lived in one of the finer cottages in the area.

The well-dressed Bridget was known to take long walks by herself to deliver eggs to her customers and often passed by the old “Fairy Forts”, medieval ring forts in Kylenagranagh.

One day in March of 1895 during the hardest winter on record, the 26-year-old Bridget fell ill, and the events that followed are still shrouded in mystery and folklore. The doctor was summoned, but Michael grew impatient and visited a “fairy doctor” who prescribed herbs for Bridget. By this time, Michael had become convinced that the fairies had replaced his wife with a sickly changeling. Most likely the idea was planted in his mind by a relative who visited Bridget and thought her “much changed and not herself”.

Bridget grew weaker and the priest came to give her last rites - just in case. At this time, Bridget’s aunt and uncle decided to pay a visit to check on their niece while her husband and cousins and some other men forced a concoction of herbs boiled in milk down Bridget’s throat.

POSSESSED?

They also threw human urine on her - another popular fairy remedy. When that didn’t work, they held her over the hearth fire to try to cast out the devil they believed possessed her, while they prodded her with a red-hot poker from the fire.

Bridget was repeatedly asked if she was a fairy and continuously tested by “established methods” in local folklore to see if she really was one.

A few days after St. Patrick’s Day, Bridget was reported missing. A rumour began to circulate that Bridget had been abducted by (or had gone willingly with) the fairies inhabiting the fairy forts. Her husband supported the story. When her badly charred and mutilated body was found nearby in a shallow grave, Michael and eight other people were charged with her murder.

The coroner confirmed death by burning, but also detected signs of previous abuse. Michael denied having murdered his wife, although he did admit to “driving out the fairy.” The real Bridget, he said, would soon be found at the nearby Kylenagranagh fairy fort riding a white horse where he would be waiting to bring her home.

So the story goes.....

Join the hosts, The Fionn MacCumhaill Players, in The Horse and Jockey Hotel on this Friday, February 28, at 8.15pm to see this short film written by Anne Williamson and Brian Clancy, a screening showing what they feel is what really happened. Tickets €10. Booking: gr8events.ie